General Techniques

2.2.1.1T General Techniques

Use Previous Similar Schedules and Pre-Built Schedule Templates (2.2.1.1T.P1)

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) technique can always be used to create a schedule from scratch. However, the WBS is not always the most efficient way to build the schedule. The best way to build a schedule is to reuse one that was created previously. If a similar project was completed in the past, start by using that schedule as your base and modifying it accordingly. This will save all of the effort associated with 'discovering' how the work should be laid out. This is especially valuable if the previous project manager kept the schedule up-to-date. Then you will have the actual schedule that was used to complete the similar project.

If you do not have the schedule from a similar project, see if your company has pre-built schedule templates for projects with certain characteristics. For instance, your company may have a life cycle methodology with pre-built templates for implementing a Point-of-Sale promotion, or an Internet solution, or manufacturing a common product. You can see if the approach you are using for your project matches one of the templates. If so, it can be used as a starting point.

Be careful however. Pre-built templates from a methodology tend to be large and complicated because the vendor wants them to be applicable for all projects with certain characteristics. After determining that the schedule template is a match, the project manager must evaluate the activities in the template and determine the ones that are applicable to this project. Those activities that are applicable should remain in the schedule. Those that are not needed should be removed.

Always Assign One Person to be Primarily Responsible for the Work (2.2.1.1T.P2)

A common mistake is to assign two or more people to an activity without designating who has the primary responsibility to ensure the work is done correctly and completely. A lack of primary responsibility may make some people defer to each other and end up delaying work that needs to start quickly. You can also run into a problem when multiple people miss portions of work that each person thinks the other one is working on. If an activity has only one person assigned, it is pretty clear who is responsible. But if two or more people are assigned to the same activity, make sure one of them is designated as primarily responsible for coordinating the work to ensure it is done completely, correctly and within quality, effort and duration estimates.

Assign Generic Resource Groups First, Then Specific Resources (2.2.1.1T.P3)

In many cases, you are not sure of the specific resources that will be assigned to your team while you are developing the project schedule. This will especially be true for resources that are not needed until further out into the future. In these cases, use a generic resource as a placeholder in the project schedule. For instance, you may need a data modeler three months after the project starts. In the schedule, refer to this person with a generic name of Data Modeler #1. Then, as the time gets closer to actually needing the person, you can update the schedule with the actual name of the person who will do the work. If you estimate the work based on a generic role, you probably will be okay no matter who is actually assigned to do the work.

Use Full-Time Project Resources When Possible (2.2.1.1T.P4)

In many cases a project team is made up of full-time and part-time staff. Usually this is a function of the size of the organization, the size of the project, available resources and how the functional department is organized. However, if you have the ability, your first choice should always be to utilize full-time resources on your project.

Taken to the extreme, for example, you will get much more done with one full-time resource than you will with five resources that each are assigned for 20%. Part-time resources have competing workloads, competing priorities and competing managers. This is especially the case if people have part-time project and part-time support responsibilities, since production support issues normally have priority over the project. Also, in many cases, people are not able to effectively manage their time across different projects, which results in the need for more oversight on the part of the project manager. Lastly, there is a productivity cost to having to switch from one type of work to another. The team member needs to ramp down from his current work and ramp up to the second assignment. If there are three sets of priorities, even more thrashing occurs and less productive work gets done.

Gather Additional Feedback if the Project Manager Does Not Know all the Subject Matter Details (2.2.1.1T.P5)

The project manager is the person with the responsibility to successfully execute the project. He is the person who must create the schedule and believe in it. If it was necessary for someone else to create the initial schedule, the schedule should be reviewed and modified by the project manager to ensure he accepts the timeline, budget and the deliverables to be produced. Otherwise, it is too easy for the project manager to opt out of the responsibility to deliver, by saying that he cannot be held accountable for a schedule that he did not create.

That being said, the project manager does not usually have the expertise to build the plan entirely on his own. There are two main techniques for gathering all the information required to complete the schedule.

Create a draft and circulate to stakeholders.

In this approach, the project manager creates an initial draft of the schedule. There may be a subset of team members involved as well. When the draft is completed, it is circulated to the stakeholders for feedback. During the review process, work is added, changed or deleted. The project manager takes the feedback and incorporates it into the schedule, which is then used going forward in the project. This approach results in a well-developed schedule and provides opportunities for feedback and buy-in from the stakeholders.

There are two potential risks in this approach. First, the stakeholders may not be fully engaged in the project yet. This may result in a lack of focus on the schedule. Second, if the schedule is detailed and lengthy, most of the stakeholders probably will not be able to understand it. In this case, the schedule probably will need to be circulated at a higher-level, perhaps with summary tasks or milestones only.

Build the WBS and schedule through direct stakeholder involvement.

In this approach, the schedule is built through one or more sessions with the major stakeholders in the room. It may be possible to get all the stakeholders in a facilitated session for one or more days to gain consensus on what needs to be done. If the project is large, you may need to meet with the major stakeholders in groups. For instance, you may have facilitated sessions with each functional department. Each department has a specific way of viewing the project, but a complete schedule can be generated by consolidating the various session results. This approach has the advantage of having active engagement and participation from the stakeholders. They should then have complete buy-in to the work that needs to be done and to their role. This technique might or might not take longer and be more labor intensive than the first option, depending on how many sessions need to be run and how soon the session results can be sent back to the session participants for validation.

Factor in Predetermined End-dates (Timeboxing) (2.2.1.1T.P6)

In a perfect world, project completion dates would be derived based on the amount of work to be done and the number of resources available. As you know, that is not always the case. Sometimes there is an arbitrary or very valid date by which the work must be completed. For instance, the end-date may be determined by a government regulation, a scheduled event or to coincide with another company initiative. This situation is referred to as a timebox, meaning you have a fixed amount of time to get the work done and the end-date is “boxed” in.

There is nothing wrong with having a fixed end-date. It provides a sense for the business value of the project and gives everyone on the team a sense of urgency and focus. There may be a problem, however, if the project manager and team do not think they can get the work done by the deadline. In that case, the project manager needs to raise this as an issue. Potential resolutions include:

Assigning more resources to the project. Even though each additional resource begins to have diminished value, this is usually the first place to start.
Having the team work overtime, with the understanding that overtime itself has a diminishing return for each additional hour, and that long-term overtime can actually have a negative effect.
Working with the business clients to scale back the required deliverables due by the deadline. This may include removing entire deliverables or functionality from required deliverables.
Determining whether required deliverables and features can actually be delivered later than the due date. In these cases, a 90% solution may be viable at the due date, with the additional work completed soon after.

Even if your manager or sponsor has given you a fixed end-date, it is important to carefully build the schedule first as if you did not have the fixed end-date. If you do this first, it will give you a sense for how realistic it is to hit the fixed date. For example, let’s say you have a project that has to be completed in nine months. If you first create a “normal” schedule that shows the project will be complete in 9 ½ months, it would not be too much of a stretch to think you could complete the work in nine months. However, if you create a “normal” schedule and it shows the end date at 13 months, you will understand the difficulty and the risk associated with trying to get all of the work completed in the nine-month timebox. This does not mean that you will not have the nine month deadline. However, it gives you more information to have a fact-based discussion on the project risks and options that are available to you.

Use Multiple Estimating Techniques if Possible (2.2.1.1T.P7)

An important part of building the schedule is being able to accurately estimate the work activities. Estimates of effort hours will, in turn, drive the cost and duration estimates. There are a number of techniques that can be used to estimate work. If possible, try to use two or more techniques for the estimate. If the estimates from multiple techniques are close, you will have more confidence in your numbers. If the estimates are far apart, you can look at the reasons and determine whether one technique may be more accurate than another. Although the estimating process can be complex, some common techniques and definitions are provided in 2.2.1.2T Estimating Techniques for Schedule and Budget.

Spend More Time Up-Front to Save Time Later (2.2.1.1T.P8)

Doesn’t it seem that most problems that are encountered on a project tend to surface toward the end in the construction and testing process? In fact, some project managers purposely hurry through planning, analysis and design because they think they will catch any mistakes in the testing process.

Unfortunately, the longer it takes for errors to be caught, the more time-consuming and expensive it is to fix them. When you are building your schedule, try to spend more time preparing and planning work up-front. This should end up saving time and cost in the overall project. For instance, spending more time in early planning will save time in analysis. Spending more time in analysis makes the design work go more smoothly. Spending more time on deliverable reviews will catch errors earlier and save time in testing. Testing thoroughly will save time in implementation and support. Of course, you don't want to over-plan or overanalyze; that doesn't buy you anything. But be diligent in this up-front work. Don't rush through it. Time invested up-front will more than make up for itself over the life of the project.

Create a Short-Term Schedule to Guide the Definition and Planning Processes (2.2.1.1T.P9)

The process of defining the work (step 2.1P) and creating the schedule and budget may take a long time and may be very complicated. Therefore, the work should not be left unorganized, for the same reasons that you are building the schedule for the project to begin with. Immediately after being assigned, the project manager should create a short-term schedule to plan and guide the initial activities. This initial schedule should cover the length of time needed to define and plan the work (steps 2.1P and 2.2P). If this is a two-week process, the project manager should create an interim schedule of at least two weeks - probably three. If the time to define and plan the work is four weeks, this initial schedule should cover at least four, if not five or six weeks. This preliminary schedule covers all of the organizing and up-front planning activities until the formal project schedule is completed to guide the remainder of the project.

This up-front schedule should be pre-defined at an organizational level so that all projects use the same process to define and plan the work.

Determine if You Will Capture Actual Effort Hours (2.2.1.1T.P10)

A very early decision needs to be made as to whether you will capture actual effort hours on the schedule. For instance, let’s say you estimated an activity to have 40 hours of effort and ten days duration. It is easy to know when the activity is complete so you can compare estimated duration against actual duration. However, are you going to keep track of whether the effort was actually 40 hours? Capturing actual effort hours requires much more diligence on behalf of the project team to keep track of their time per activity and report it back accurately. There is a lot of value associated with capturing actual effort hours, including helping make future estimates more accurate. However, many organizations do not capture the actual effort hours. If your organization does not capture actual effort hours, it will be difficult for a project manager to enforce this discipline on one specific project. Collecting actual effort hours is usually something that is required (or not required) on an organization-wide basis.

Be Cautious About Having too Much Slack in the Schedule (2.2.1.1T.P11)

There is only one path through the schedule that does not have any slack or float. This is the critical path and it will drive the end-date. Although every other path in the schedule has some slack, there might be some concern if there is too much slack. “Too much slack” means that the other paths have many long gaps when no work needs to be done. This can lead to a long “skinny” network diagram. Of course there may not be a problem with this occurrence. However, the potential implication of having too much slack in the schedule is as follows:

Many resources are coming and going in and out of the project, and this can cause potential problems making sure everyone is available when needed and for as long as needed.
If you use the same resources off the critical path, you may have to mix in non-project work for them when they do not have project work to do. You may assign them a few weeks of project work, then find other work for them during the slack time, and then make sure they are available for you again when they have more project work assigned.
There may be a lack of urgency on the part of all resources that are not on the critical path. In other words, you have one or more resources working hard on critical path activities and end-dates, while everyone else has a lot of slack in his schedule. This can be de-motivating to the resources on the critical path.

Be Cautious About Having too Little Slack in the Schedule (2.2.1.1T.P12)

Just as there is risk with having too much slack, there is also some risk associated with not having very much slack. If this happens, minor schedule slippages off the critical path could force these paths critical as well. It would be better if the project schedule could be built in such a way that the non-critical paths were “full but not too full” so that a group of resources could be utilized more efficiently on the project.

Enter Work on Your Scheduling Tool in Chronological Order (2.2.1.1T.P13)

The larger the project, the more critical it is that you use an automated tool to help build the schedule and budget. Although the activities can be added in any order when entering them into the tool, it is easier to understand if you add the activities in chronological order. That is, the earlier activities should be listed first on the schedule and the later activities should be listed in the general order that they will be executed. As you enter the activities, you can also enter the dependencies, since these prior dependent activities should have already been entered into the tool. If you do not enter the activities in chronological order, you will need to put activities in first, and then specify the dependencies after all of the activities are entered. For each activity entered, you should also include the estimated work effort.

Plan Ahead for Critical Resource Contingencies (2.2.1.1T.P14)

Your risk management process allows you to evaluate and respond to high-level project risks. Some of these risks involve project resources and require that you consider ahead of time how you will respond if you need to replace or add resources. In fact, in some cases, you must actually plan ahead to understand what the contingency resources look like and how you will get them if they are needed. This contingency planning could affect either labor or non-labor resources. Here are some examples of where you should plan ahead.

Time is of the essence. On many projects, if you find that work is taking longer than you anticipated, you might have the flexibility to ask for additional time and budget. However, if the deadline date is critical and cannot be moved, you may not have time to look for new resources to get back on schedule. Likewise, if a member of your team leaves you may need to find a replacement in very short order.

When deadlines are firm and the project deliverables are critical, you need to have some plans in place for finding resources when needed. For example, let’s look at the YR2K projects of a few years ago. If you were entering the final six months of 1999 and needed more resources, you would not have time to spend three months finding people. You should already have had a plan for acquiring resources on short notice. This may have meant having employees or contract people in reserve to allow you to make staffing changes quickly.

Low incremental cost from bulk purchases. You may have resources that are less expensive when purchased in bulk, but very expensive when purchased incrementally. For instance, if the solution you are building requires new hardware, you may find that the price per unit is less as you purchase more units. Let’s say that you estimate you will need 100 promotional CDs, plus or minus 10. Your vendor may give you a very attractive price for buying in bulk – perhaps 50 or 60% of the unit price. In this case, you may choose to purchase the full 110 now and have ten units in reserve. You would do this because the price to purchase the extra ten units now (as a part of the bulk order) is much less expensive that having to purchase ten units later, when the incremental cost would be much higher.
Long lead times for specialty resources. Sometimes there is a long lead-time to acquire hard-to-find specialty resources. If the need is critical enough, you may need to know ahead of time how to find these people on short notice if needed. For example, you may need experts in some obscure tool. One way to plan ahead is to work with the vendor to have resources identified that can be made available to you in an emergency. If an expert on your team quits, you will not be stuck. You would have already worked out a deal to have substitute resources available on short notice – even if only short-term.

You can see that not all projects require this sort of advanced planning. However, on some projects it is absolutely critical. The project manager should understand ahead of time whether there are resource risks such as those described above. In those cases, once you discover that you need these resources it may be too late to find them and still complete the project on time and within budget. So, do what a smart project manager would do – plan ahead of time and understand where you will go to acquire these critical resources when needed.